The K Desktop Environment

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3. Configuration

kwm can be configured using the KDE Control Center (application starter > KDE Control Center). Open the Windows tree to work with the various configuration options. The keyboard shortcuts can be configure in the Global Keys section.

To configure virtual desktops, open the Applications tree and choose Panel.

For those who prefer to edit a configuration file, this section explains the options in the kwmrc file, located in ~/.kde/share/config.

3.1 kwmrc

The kwmrc configuration file is divided into the following sections:

[Buttons]

This section controls placement of window control buttons in the titlebar. It contains lines of the form

ButtonX=button-name

where X is a letter A-F, and button-name is one of Menu, Sticky, Iconify, Maximize, Close, Off. Buttons A, B, and C appear on the left-hand side of the window title, and D, E, and F appear on the right-hand side.

[General]

This section defines a number of miscellaneous configuration items:

[Session]

[Desktop]

This section defines the number of virtual desktops, their names, and positions. It contains lines like the following:

Note that overwriting the regions in the config file will have very little effect, since kpanel will tell kwm reasonable values for the current desktop as soon as it starts up. When you logout, kwm will store these new settings.

[Decoration]

[Focus]

[Sticky]

Each property allows you to specify a comma separated list of regular expressions. A window whose title or class matches a specified expression will be decorated appropriately.

Note: These hints only affect NEW windows. Do not forget to call kwmcom configure or re-start kwm after you changed the kwmrc file.

Instead of hacking the config file you probabaly want to use the kstart utility.

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